Kawakami: This has to be it for declining Giants pitcher Guillermo Mota

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Staff archives: San Francisco Giants pitcher Guillermo Mota (59) throws against the Milwaukee Brewers in the eighth inning at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Saturday, May 5, 2012. (LiPo Ching/Staff)

Staff archives: San Francisco Giants closer Guillermo Mota throws to first for an out against the Miami Marlins during the ninth inning of their game at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, May 2, 2012. (Jane Tyska/Staff)

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Staff archives: San Francisco Giants closer Guillermo Mota throws against the Miami Marlins during the eighth inning of their game at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, May 2, 2012. (Jane Tyska/Staff)

Guillermo Mota was clear and unambiguous, took all blame for a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs and swore it will never happen again.

It sure sounded like he meant it. But that statement of contrition came more than five years ago, not now.

And Mota, 38, was just suspended again Monday, this time for 100 games, after flunking a drug test. (The drug: Clenbuterol, considered to be a stimulant.)

This is probably the end of Mota’s career — has to be the end of his Giants career, which was headed toward the end, anyway.

A generation removed from the Barry Bonds turmoil, the last thing the Giants can do is harbor a repeat PED offender.

He’s gone. Possibly to be replaced by potential future closer Heath Hembree, and the baseball world moves on.

But it’s clear Mota will be remembered for two things in the Bay Area:

He was a popular, if not the most crucial, member of the 2010 World Series team.

His bellowing, dancing and dousing were clubhouse staples after all those playoff clinchers.

There was something odd about Mota’s outings this season, beyond the general decline.

Mota was still throwing relatively hard, but he tried at least two or three quick pitches that I can remember — not the sign of a confident 38-year-old reliever.

He consistently looked as if he knew he was in trouble on the mound unless he tricked the hitter, and his 5.06 ERA in nine appearances was another telltale indicator of trouble.

And now, perhaps more lastingly, Mota will go down in PED history for the duality of his two suspensions.

Mota’s first suspension came when he was with the New York Mets, after the 2006 season, in the middle of the first big push to clear the sport of steroids.

He was suspended for 50 games, but he was relatively young then, still very serviceable, and the Mets signed him to a two-year extension about a month later.

“I have no one to blame but myself,” Mota said in a statement right after his 2006 suspension. “I take full responsibility for my actions and accept MLB’s suspension. I used extremely poor judgment and deserve to be held accountable …

“To my teammates and the entire Mets organization, I am sorry. I truly regret what I did and hope that you can forgive me. To baseball fans everywhere, I understand that you are disappointed in me, and I don’t blame you.

“I feel terrible and I promise this is the first and last time that this will happen. I am determined to prove to you that this was one mistake.”

It apparently wasn’t just one mistake.

There were at least two. Other players have been suspended multiple times (including Manny Ramirez in 2009 and his current 50-game suspension).

But only Mota has been hit with suspensions both in the first wave of the crackdown (2005-06) and many years later, when PED use is theoretically almost out of the game.

This is not a wonderful way for any player to go out. As Mota said in 2006, it is his fault and only his fault.

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